Correction to: The hidden therapist: evidence for a central role of music in psychedelic therapy.

The article The hidden therapist: evidence for a central role of music in psychedelic therapy, written by Mendel Kaelen, Bruna Giribaldi, Jordan Raine, Lisa Evans, Christopher Timmerman, Natalie Rodriguez, Leor Roseman, Amanda Feilding, David Nutt, Robin Carhart-Harris, was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal

Reporting of conflicts of interest from drug trials in Cochrane reviews:cross sectional study

Objectives To investigate the degree to which Cochrane reviews of drug interventions published in 2010 reported conflicts of interest from included trials and, among reviews that reported this information, where it was located in the review documents. Design Cross sectional study. Data sources Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Selection criteria Systematic reviews of drug interventions published in 2010 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, with review content classified as up to date in 2008 or later and with results from one or more randomised controlled trials. Results Of 151 included Cochrane reviews, 46 (30%, 95% confidence interval 24% to 38%) reported information on the funding sources of included trials, including 30 (20%, 14% to 27%) that reported information on trial funding for all included trials and 16 (11%, 7% to 17%) that reported for some, but not all, trials. Only 16 of the 151 Cochrane reviews (11%, 7% to 17%) provided any information on trial author-industry financial ties or trial author-industry employment. Information on trial funding and trial author-industry ties was reported in one to seven locations within each review, with no consistent reporting location observed. Conclusions Most Cochrane reviews of drug trials published in 2010 did not provide information on trial funding sources or trial author-industry financial ties or employment. When this information was reported, location of reporting was inconsistent across reviews

Osteoprotegerin mediates tumor-promoting effects of Interleukin-1beta in breast cancer cells

__Background:__ It is widely recognized that inflammation promotes breast cancer invasion and metastasis. Given the complex nature of the breast tumor inflammatory microenvironment, much remains to be understood of the molecular mechanisms that govern these effects. We have previously shown that osteoprotegerin knockdown in breast cancer cells resulted in reduced invasion and metastasis. Here we present novel insight into the role of osteoprotegerin in inflammation-driven tumor progression in breast cancer by investigating the link between osteoprotegerin, macrophages and the potent pro-inflammatory cytokine Interleukin-1beta. __Methods:__ We used human breast cancer cell lines to investigate the effects of Interleukin-1beta treatment on osteoprotegerin secretion as measured by ELISA. We analyzed public datasets containing human breast cancer genome-wide mRNA expression data to reveal a significant and positive correlation between osteoprotegerin mRNA expression and the mRNA expression of Interleukin-1beta and of monocyte chemoattractant protein CC-chemokine ligand 2. Osteoprotegerin, Interleukin-1beta and CC-chemokine ligand 2 mRNA levels were also examined by qPCR on cDNA from normal and cancerous human breast tissue. We determined the effect of Interleukin-1beta-producing macrophages on osteoprotegerin expression by co-culturing breast cancer cells and differentiated THP-1 macrophages. Immunohistochemistry was performed on human breast tumor tissue microarrays to assess macrophage infiltration and osteoprotegerin expression. To demonstrate that osteoprotegerin mediated functional effects of Interleukin-1beta we performed cell invasion studies with control and OPG siRNA knockdown on Interleukin-1beta-treated breast cancer cells. __Results:__ We report that Interleukin-1beta induces osteoprotegerin secretion, independent of breast cancer subtype and basal osteoprotegerin levels. Co-culture of breast cancer cells with Interleukin-1beta-secreting macrophages resulted in a similar increase in osteoprotegerin secretion in breast cancer cells as Interleukin-1beta treatment. Macrophage infiltration correlates with osteoprotegerin secretion in human breast tumor tissue samples. We show that osteoprotegerin secretion is regulated by Interleukin-1beta in a p38- and p42/44-dependent manner. We also demonstrate that osteoprotegerin knockdown represses Interleukin-1beta expression, Interleukin-1beta-mediated breast cancer cell invasion and MMP3 expression. __Conclusions:__ These data indicate a novel role for osteoprotegerin as a mediator of inflammation- promoted breast cancer progression

Operational reliability assessment of the GEOS A spacecraft

Decision theory application to GEOS A spacecraft operational reliability assessmen

Reporting of Conflicts of Interest in Meta-analyses of Trials of Pharmacological Treatments

Context Disclosure of conflicts of interest (COIs) from pharmaceutical industry study funding and author-industry financial relationships is sometimes recommended for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in biomedical journals. Authors of meta-analyses, however, are not required to report COIs disclosed in original reports of included RCTs. Objective To investigate whether meta-analyses of pharmacological treatments published in high-impact biomedical journals report COIs disclosed in included RCTs. Data Sources and Study Selection We selected the 3 most recent meta-analyses of patented pharmacological treatments published January 2009 through October 2009 in each general medicine journal with an impact factor of at least 10; in high-impact journals in each of the 5 specialty medicine areas with the greatest 2008 global therapeutic sales (oncology, cardiology, respiratory medicine, endocrinology, and gastroenterology); and in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Data Extraction Two investigators independently extracted data on disclosed study funding, author-industry financial ties, and author employment from each meta-analysis, from RCTs included in each meta-analysis, and on whether meta-analyses reported disclosed COIs of included RCTs. Results Of 29 meta-analyses reviewed, which included 509 RCTs, only 2 meta-analyses (7%) reported RCT funding sources; and 0 reported RCT author-industry ties or employment by the pharmaceutical industry. Of 318 meta-analyzed RCTs that reported funding sources, 219 (69%) were industry funded; and 91 of 132 (69%) that reported author financial disclosures had 1 or more authors with pharmaceutical industry financial ties. In 7 of the 29 meta-analyses reviewed, 100% of included RCTs had at least 1 form of disclosed COI (pharmaceutical industry funding, author-industry financial ties, or employment), yet only 1 of these 7 meta-analyses reported RCT funding sources, and 0 reported RCT author-industry ties or employment. Conclusion Among a group of meta-analyses of pharmacological treatments published in high-impact biomedical journals, information concerning primary study funding and author COIs for the included RCTs were only rarely reported. JAMA. 2011;305(10):1008-1017 www.jama.co

On the role of goal relevance in emotional attention: Disgust evokes early attention to cleanliness

Prior evidence has shown that aversive emotional states are characterised by an attentional bias towards aversive events. The present study investigated whether aversive emotions also bias attention towards stimuli that represent means by which the emotion can be alleviated. We induced disgust by having participants touch fake disgusting objects. Participants in the control condition touched nondisgusting objects. The results of a subsequent dot-probe task revealed that attention was oriented to disgusting pictures irrespective of condition. However, participants in the disgust condition also oriented towards pictures representing cleanliness. These findings suggest that the deployment of attention in aversive emotional states is not purely stimulus driven but is also guided by the goal to alleviate this emotional state

Thermal decomposition of allantoin as probed by matrix isolation FTIR spectroscopy

The optimized geometries, energies of the possible conformers of allantoin (2,5-dioxo-4-imidazolidinyl urea, the diureide of glyoxylic acid) as well as the barriers for conformational interconversion have been calculated using the density functional theory [DFT(B3LYP)/6-311++G(d,p)] method. The calculations predicted the existence of four conformers (gC, tT, g′C, and g′T; where the first and second symbols in the name of the conformers designate the conformation around the exocyclic NHC–NHCO and CNH–CO axes, respectively), with the gC form contributing to more than 98% of the population in gas phase at room temperature. This conformer is different from that corresponding to the monomeric unit found in crystalline RS-allantoin (g′C; Mootz, D. Acta Crystallogr.1965, 19, 726), stressing the importance of intermolecular H-bonding in determining the structure of the crystal. Upon sublimation under vacuum (10−6 mbar), the compound was found to undergo extensive decomposition to urea, isocyanic acid, NH3, and carbon. The identification of the decomposition products was made by using matrix isolation infrared spectroscopy. In consonance with the theoretical predictions, the allantoin molecules surviving thermal decomposition were found to undergo conformational isomerization and be present in the cryogenic argon matrix in both the gC and g′C conformations. The solid state room temperature infrared spectrum of allantoin was also investigated and assigned

Effects of interspecific gene flow on the phenotypic variance–covariance matrix in Lake Victoria Cichlids

Quantitative genetics theory predicts adaptive evolution to be constrained along evolutionary lines of least resistance. In theory, hybridization and subsequent interspecific gene flow may, however, rapidly change the evolutionary constraints of a population and eventually change its evolutionary potential, but empirical evidence is still scarce. Using closely related species pairs of Lake Victoria cichlids sampled from four different islands with different levels of interspecific gene flow, we tested for potential effects of introgressive hybridization on phenotypic evolution in wild populations. We found that these effects differed among our study species. Constraints measured as the eccentricity of phenotypic variance–covariance matrices declined significantly with increasing gene flow in the less abundant species for matrices that have a diverged line of least resistance. In contrast, we find no such decline for the more abundant species. Overall our results suggest that hybridization can change the underlying phenotypic variance–covariance matrix, potentially increasing the adaptive potential of such populations